The majority of the male labor force shifted from material
extraction to material processing to working with
people and information.

Throughout history, most men were engaged in primary occupations such as
farming or fishing, while a few craftsmen made artifacts and a handful of priests,
scribes, and officials worked with their heads rather than their hands. The
Industrial Revolution broke that pattern, transforming millions of farmers into
factory
workers. In Great Britain, the first country to industrialize, factory workers
outnumbered farm workers by 1840. In the United States, a comparable shift in
the occupational balance occurred shortly after 1900. This shift from the primary
occupations of material extraction to the secondary occupations of material
processing
continued for more than half a century. By 1970, the proportion of the
labor force engaged in primary occupations had declined to less than 5 percent.

The subsequent shift from secondary work with tools and materials to tertiary work
with information and people, already under way in 1900, gathered momentum
throughout the century and by 1970, more men held white-collar than blue-collar
jobs. The proportion of the male labor force employed in tertiary occupations—
professional, technical, managerial, clerical, and service work—more than tripled
during the century, from 21 percent in 1900 to 58 percent in 1998.

An upgrading within each of these categories became apparent after 1960, when the
ratio of upper white-collar occupations (professionals, managers, officials,
technicians)
to lower white-collar occupations (mostly clerks and salesmen) increased
significantly,
as did the ratio of upper manual occupations (craftsmen and skilled
artisans) to lower manual occupations (machine operators and laborers).

The long-term shift from digging, riveting, and hammering to filling out forms,
negotiating agreements, and writing software continued unabated. Even in
straightforward industrial production, computerization expanded the need for
administrative activities while minimizing the demand for physical labor. Blue-collar
workers were increasingly found at desks rather than workbenches.